


a quarrelsome time

by sharkie



Series: broken crown [2]
Category: Fallen London | Echo Bazaar, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell - Susanna Clarke
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Canon Disabled Character, Crossover, Father-Son Relationship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-03
Updated: 2017-08-03
Packaged: 2018-12-03 20:33:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11539935
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sharkie/pseuds/sharkie
Summary: Bargaining with fairies is dangerous, so jot that down.[Edited on 31/10/17]





	a quarrelsome time

**Author's Note:**

> _The Seventh Letter_ text is from the Order Ovate, Night medal from Fallen London's in-game text. **Contains spoilers** for the overarching FL plot.
> 
> Now, watch me dig a double grave for complicated lore!
> 
>  **31/10/17:** I made adjustments to fit the Contrarian's newly-revealed canon background. It actually makes more sense this way.

**RAVEN:** Truly my voice is sweeter than the song of the stone, the swan, the storm...

(Enter a MESSENGER beribboned with RAGS of CLOUD.)

 **RAVEN:** _(in haste)_ ...yet no sweeter than yours, great master. I acknowledge it so.

 **MESSENGER:** O blackness, o blackness, wherefore should I sing? When all of my songs are seared on my skin?

( _Exeunt_.)

 **-** _The Seventh Letter_  

* * *

  **November 1884**  

On the Surface, they called it the witching hour; it had no equivalent name in the Neath, but the sentiment held. They said that this was when nightmares became more potent than the vices used to dull them. They said that the false stars were really the darkness' eyes and their vision would reach its sharpest. They said that the gas-lamps would whisper to the cobbles and the cobbles to the bricks, plotting revenge against those responsible for the Fall, even the thoroughly-dead and those already punished. 

It was at this ungodly hour that a young man in a wheeled chair sat alone in his library, surrounded by a number of lit candles that would greatly concern a more mindful person. The rest of the room was unremarkable save for a prominent portrait of two men hanging on one wall and a large, ornate mirror propped against another. True to the first half of his sobriquet - which was the Jovial Contrarian[1]  - the young man had been smiling at nothing in particular throughout the tedious task of lighting the tapers and placing them by himself.

The candles guttered in an unexpected gust of wind. He struck a fresh match to light another; this final taper, he set onto a tabletop, beside a well-thumbed copy of _The Odyssey_. Satisfied that the candle would not be blown out, he turned his chair away, silently mouthing the words he would shortly recite aloud.

He wheeled past the mirror. Then he stopped and reversed to examine the glass.

The man staring back at him had tousled dark hair and an ironic smile - a familiar sight in any reflective surface, yet this was not his reflection.

The Contrarian overcame his rare bout of speechlessness to say, “Father?”

“My, you have grown,” said Jonathan Strange. “I have not spoken to you since...January, yes?”

“11th June, last year,” the Contrarian replied, “through a letter stuck to the inside of this mirror. You ended by saying you would see me ‘soon’.”

“‘Inside’ is a matter of perspective, is it not?” mused Strange. He leaned against one side of the mirror’s frame and bent unconsciously, unnecessarily, as was his habit whenever he addressed his son. “Technically, _you_ are inside the mirror to me.”

The Contrarian smiled wryly. “If mirrors are entryways to passages between realms, and you are between realms, it stands to reason that you are, in fact, inside the mirror.”

The Contrarian accepted the subsequent lull in the conversation as a minor victory, to his slight dismay. Behind Strange he could faintly discern features of Hurtfew Abbey's library, shrouded in the same Darkness enveloping Strange. He wondered if Mr Norrell was listening but couldn't find a trace of him within the frame. He deduced that shyness had gotten the better of Norrell this time; perhaps he thought it was a family affair, or was strategically located nearby.

“You still wear black,” observed Strange.

“I've worn other clothes throughout the past few years,” said the Contrarian, wheeling his chair closer. “Besides, black is the typical fashion for a revolutionary like myself.”

The Contrarian had long envisioned this discussion. _Ah!_ the elder Strange would say,  _I suppose you are paving the way for the Raven King’s_ _return?_ Taken to its logical extreme, revolution called for overthrowing all law and all rulers, including the Raven King. Anyway, hadn’t he forfeited his claim over England when he’d disappeared yet again after leaving a new mess for them to contend with? _Ah!_ he would say...

“Oh, are you?” asked Strange. “It is good to be occupied.”

“You have no other opinion on my allies?”

“I wish they would choose a different colour for their coats.” Strange shifted in place. “Now, please, what is - ” he gestured to indicate the library’s specially flammable state, “- all of this?”

“This?” The Contrarian shrugged, at odds with his conspiratorial smile. “This is a nighttime ritual of mine. I’ve never seen sheep with my own eyes, so I can’t imagine counting them to fall asleep. Instead I surround myself with lit candles and watch them flicker out one by one.”

“Meticulously arranged candles, in the library, near the only mirror in the house.”

“Yes.” He tilted his head at an angle of maximum innocuousness, deriving great amusement from how Strange’s lips had curled. “Is there a problem, Father?”

“I once hallucinated candle wicks in people’s heads, you know,” said Strange.

The Contrarian nodded cordially, barely resisting the urge to posit that everyone had candle wicks in their heads and most people hallucinated that they didn't. “You’ve mentioned. Several times, I believe. But I don’t have my notes here.”

“Notes?”

“I record everything you tell me.” This practice had been adopted partially to compensate for their mutually poor memory and partially to compile evidence for future arguments.

Strange absorbed this new piece of information with ease, far more preoccupied by the issue at hand. “You have not cared for magic before,” he said, straightening.[2]

“Well, in my experience,” said the Contrarian brightly, “disengagement doesn't equal disregard.”

Good God, the insinuation sailed over Strange’s head like a hunting zee-bat. “Ah, I see that you have resolved to be difficult. Excellent.”  

The Jovial Contrarian merely beamed in response.

* * *

Out of all the Neath’s mysteries, the story behind Jonathan and Arabella Strange’s son is comparatively mundane. There had developed means of extending lifespans indefinitely, if not granting true immortality. Several individuals who'd lived through the Revival of English Magic had planned to see the end of the Pillar of Darkness, when the combined efforts of the most talented magicians had proven unable to undo the enchantment upon Strange and Norrell; the men themselves had been of inconstant help. 

It was rumoured that Strange and Norrell spent their time in the Pillar of Darkness protecting England from worse supernatural forces. It was disputed how effective they'd been. This much, at least, is certain: in 1861, English magicians had ultimately been unable to prevent London’s sale to the Bazaar. The Fall occurred in February the next year. Arabella had a ten-year-old son by late 1872. 

Now twenty-two, he was clever and outgoing, capable of substantial charm but erratically disposed to exercise it. He could not dance, but his speech more than compensated; his high society peers agreed that his nose was relatively well-proportioned. His major fault was compulsive argumentativeness motivated by love of the act itself rather than irritability. In fact there seemed to be only one person capable of consistently annoying him, and that was his father.

Whenever Jonathan Strange was a topic of discussion, you'd be hard-pressed to find a more vocal critic than his own son. As the Contrarian was a potential vocal critic of _everything_ \- and potentially everything’s greatest advocate - this wasn't so dire. He lambasted Strange more often than bestowing praise because English nostalgia had moulded Strange into a purely heroic figure. (With the exception of debating his Aunt Emma, which was when he would abruptly become Strange’s most ardent defender; however, he would speak of him as if he were an _Aureate_ magician, not a sporadically-involved parent.) Sometimes one could almost mistake him for a Norrelite, had he not reserved his most genuine contempt for censorship and the concept of respectability.

The Contrarian was, alas, an ordinary writer, bold and astute but detached from anything more occult than the infrequent amateur Correspondence study. His rejection of magic was an immense disappointment to Strange’s admirers. It was a terrible waste of natural talent, they said. A penchant for literary pursuits was a poor excuse. After all, Jonathan Strange had channeled his creative energy into magic.

“He channeled it,” the Contrarian would merrily concur, “and rose the dead speaking the language of Hell that couldn't be silenced, was nearly kidnapped alongside the King he had kidnapped for an afternoon, accidentally led to my mother being kidnapped for a year, engulfed half an acre of Venice in a Pillar of Darkness, and is currently trapped in said Pillar of Darkness. But thank you for your suggestion.”

Since 1862, books _about_ magic and books _of_ magic had been routinely rounded up by the Ministry of Public Decency and possibly destroyed. The distinction didn’t matter. Semantic quibbling may attract unwanted attention or spontaneous combustion; in the Neath, one typically led to the other. The Jovial Contrarian had tasked himself with safeguarding magic-related books, storing many of them within this very library. But he hadn’t consulted them in some time.

Until now.

“I only want to ask about the Bazaar's past,” the Contrarian argued. In his agitation he'd been repeatedly adjusting the red-feathered pin attached to his sleeve. “Seeing as the Raven King’s other kingdoms are in Faerie and the far side of Hell, and we safely interact with the latter - ”

Strange looked taken aback. “There are soulless roaming the streets!”

“And they speak perfect English and join Parliament! Honestly, Father, we aren’t as vulnerable as you think.”

“You seem to forget that London is protected by the very - interstellar courier tortoise - ”

“The chitin suggests a crustacean, really,” said the Contrarian, “though that leaves the tentacles unaccounted for.”

“- squid-crab that you wish to depose. Consider that if _I_ am discouraging you from something, then it must be serious. This path is indescribaly dangerous,” insisted Strange.

“Oh, I can’t have that.”

“No.”

“It must be dangerous enough to report to a skeptical audience, or in a step-by-step journal ending in a scrawl that goes off the page,” the Contrarian concluded. “Otherwise it might not work. Narrative law, you understand.”

“I thought you were a revolutionary,” protested Strange. 

“Are you not pleased that I'm following your example?” 

“You could easily practice magic without fairy assistance.”

“I was referring to rescuing people from under the earth and seeking to escape a mysterious quasi-metaphysical darkness, but it's good to know where your focus is concentrated.” 

It bears mentioning that Strange's sense of time had always been poor; in the Darkness, it had deteriorated to utterly abysmal. Over the years his visits had ranged from regular to worryingly sparse. To have him reappear following a prolonged absence, specifically to stop the summoning, goaded the Contrarian to an unprecedented level of belligerence. But on the whole his father wasn't unwelcome. Hours had passed since his last argument; he felt that he was beginning to experience withdrawal.[3]

“I have the most extensive research possible and the guile to negotiate,” claimed the Contrarian. “I assure you, in all of London - no, all of the Neath! - you could find nobody more qualified to deal with a fairy than I am. I dare say I could rival the Bazaar’s bargaining ability.”  

“Perils of overconfidence aside, you may possess _too much_ guile. Fairies do not operate under human logic,” Strange reminded him. 

“I'm aware. That’s why I’ve practiced by arguing with cats, Rubbery Men, and boots, among other things. In the boots' case I’ve only lost twice.”

A sterner person might respond with a reprimand that this was no laughing matter. Fortunately Strange could remember his own youthful ventures and received his remarks with a small smile. 

“Have you modified the spell?” asked Strange. “I did not need so many candles.” 

The Contrarian's beam returned. “No one has ever successfully summoned a fairy in Fallen London. It may be due to our lack of light compared to the Surface.[4] I confess, I considered inducing temporary madness in myself. There's no shortage of people to extract a tincture from! But I suspect it would be more potent away from the Surface. Experimentation seemed too risky.” 

The implication was clear. He was careful, more careful than Strange had been in Venice or at any other stage of his career. His skill was promising, his attitude positive. Was this not satisfactory proof that he could be trusted? 

At length Strange said, “Sometime after I rescued Arabella, we wondered what role magic might play in our child's life, should we ever have one. Eventually we agreed that if they became interested in magic they would be free to do as they wished... _with the exception of dealing with fairies_. I promised I would take precautions, guide them, and, should the worst come to pass, protect them.”

“And when was this promise made?” the Contrarian questioned.

“How should I remember?”

“While London was still on the Surface.” The Contrarian leaned back in his chair, exuding a triumphant air that made Strange bristle to behold. “Any contract brokered there has been weakened for over two decades, if not rendered totally void.”

“A promise to a loved one is not a _contract_.”

“It may as well be, in the shadow of the courier crab.”  

“I made this promise away from the Bazaar,” Strange pointed out, “nor was I exactly on the ‘Surface’.”

“Mother lived on the Surface and near the Bazaar.”

“Your mother is no longer with you. I am.”

“Is that so?”

The room, which had already been cold, seemed to chill further - despite the barrier between them, both men could sense the change. Two or three of the candles happened to blow out of their own accord.

The Contrarian broke the uncomfortable silence to continue, “I'm unlikely to be deemed suitable for kidnapping. I have a reputation for being thrillingly troublesome at society gatherings. A fairy could tell I'd be insufferable as a permanent fixture in their court yet too interesting to kill.”

“You are _my son_ ,” said Strange, raking his fingers through his unkempt hair in exasperation. “Do you suppose that will endear you to a fairy, any fairy at all? Do you suppose they would hesitate to use you against me?”

“Or you against me,” suggested the Contrarian, cheerfully.

Strange waved a hand. “Yes, yes.”

“I hardly go around proclaiming our relation. I assume you and Norrell haven’t been alluding to my existence often, either.”

“There is a family resemblance.”

“I'm adopted _._ ”

“The point still stands.”

“I find that hard to believe. I'd confirm it myself, but, well…” Smiling grimly, the Contrarian gestured at the glass in front of him. “My mirror is broken.”

He needn’t ask how Strange had learned of this attempt to summon a fairy - days earlier, the Contrarian had tried to send a competent white raven into whatever lay behind the mirror when Strange wasn't occupying the frame. The poor bird had bounced right off the glass; it'd rippled from the impact yet remained uncracked. (The glass, not the bird.) Evidently he'd triggered a warning.

“As I said,” continued Strange coolly, “I took precautions.”

“Why did you never tell me?” In Strange's silence the Contrarian guessed the reason: if he'd known earlier, he might've figured out how to undo the seal. “Unbelievable!” exclaimed the Contrarian, banging the side of his wheeled chair in indignation. “The single time you’ve ever been cautious and proactive is when you wish to keep me from achieving a rational, worthy goal - ”

“I am not stopping you from delivering London from darkness, only from failing to do so in a certain way.”

“If you’re so convinced of my failure regarding fairies, why would I succeed through any other method?” The Contrarian seized upon this new avenue of argument with an enthusiastic aplomb that Strange would've been heartened to see had it not been incited by defying him. “Are you saying I should fail through the dangerous means you personally approve of? What makes you the foremost judge of my actions other than your own mistakes?”

“Very well,” said Strange, in a low tone that did not suggest the opposite so much as bellow it, “if you insist upon dealing with fairies, you must have memorised Ormskirk's spell to dispel illusions and correct wrong ideas. Recite it for me, please.”

“ _Place the moon at my eyes_ -”

“Have you ever seen the moon?” interrupted Strange, frowning.

“No,” the Contrarian admitted, “but I've heard that a full moon is a bright, glowing disc. Similar to the sun, I imagine.”

Strange's frown deepened. “Have you ever seen the sun?”

“You'll forgive me if my firsthand experience with celestial bodies has been somewhat limited by how I've spent my entire life underground.”

“There you have it, then! You cannot deal with fairies. I forbid you.”

“You can’t _forbid_ me! For one, you have no way of enforcing your orders from wherever you are. You never have. Furthermore, I’m - ” The Contrarian paused. “How old do you think I am?”

Strange thought for a second, cast his gaze downwards and mumbled a number. The Contrarian groaned. 

“Is this ambition of yours even so urgent?” asked Strange. “Say you learn about the Bazaar - what comes after? You know that London itself cannot be returned. You _know_ that you, personally, cannot live on the Surface. At any rate daylight there is really not as prominent as you assume - ”

“Haven't you ever had a desire to compensate for past deprivation, even without knowing what it actually entails?”

Strange lifted his head to better stare at him. The Contrarian had never seen this particular look in his eyes, which surely matched the moon in terms of brightness and the sun in terms of distance. 

“Arabella's false death threatened to drive me mad before I sought madness on purpose,” said Strange. “It resumed with a vengeance upon learning the truth. I could not bear to watch my only child rush headlong into suffering as either of us did, or worse.”

“I already am. Or have you forgotten how I dwell underground at the mercy of a supernatural regime?” The Contrarian gripped his char’s handles and leaned forward earnestly. “I want to see the England you left. I want to see Shropshire and Yorkshire and where London used to be. _I want to see the sun._ In the womb I felt the promise of its rays only to be born into a damp, endless darkness. If these dreams are impossible - and I accept that it's exceedingly likely - then I must pursue the next best thing, whatever the cost.” 

“There is always a cost that is known,” said Strange softly, “and a cost that is not.”

“I know,” replied the Contrarian, too firmly to be right.

Strange’s gaze had lowered again. “Did I fail you?” 

“Of course not. But you're not exactly helping.”

“You say you felt the sun before you were born,” said Strange. This statement was of special interest to him since he had never made physical contact with the Contrarian, wary of how the Pillar of Darkness might affect those in the Neath. He had a notion that the Contrarian's talk about deprivation wasn't entirely about literal light.

“In a sense,” answered the Contrarian amiably.

You may recall that Strange's relationship with his own father had been frosty at the best of times. He'd become a magician near-effortlessly - parenthood, while embraced with greater initial eagerness, was considerably more mystifying. Where magic was dynamic, the Contrarian was perpetually blithe; where magic was intuitive, like conducting a symphony at the back of his head, Strange's nurturing produced a pleasant, clumsy tune occasionally culminating in a migraine. He inferred that whatever tension had developed between them was his fault but, since he'd usually been absent, he couldn't put a finger on how. (“ _Not long, not long, my father said,”_ [5] the Contrarian would quote when questioned on the subject by acquaintances, then say no more.)  

In the paternal cacophony Strange often found himself at a loss, especially without Arabella. His bewilderment masqueraded as flippancy; the Contrarian would act doubly flippant in turn; so seldom was Strange's personality met with a personality like Strange's that Strange grew increasingly baffled. Most frustratingly, both father and son acknowledged the stalemate, but couldn't discuss it because they'd already held, fought over, and shelved the discussion in their imaginations. However, intermittently the figurative stars aligned, and clarity penetrated the murkiness.

“There may not have been light afterwards and for the subsequent decade, but once we met, you were suddenly loved by many,” said Strange. “Could you feel that?”

“I like love,” said the Contrarian, “but in the Bazaar’s clutches I'm positively smothered by it. Overall it’s done little for me. Love for another is the greatest liability here; in that I have an advantage. Mother is gone. Aunt Emma and Aunt Flora are across the Zee. You are far away, able to protect yourself. I love nothing that can be taken from me,” he concluded, matter-of-factly. “Respect, a mind, a life, all can be restored. With the light I've lost something I never had.”

His expression softened upon noticing the distress on Strange's face. The Contrarian added in a gentler voice, “But I needn't see the sun in order to believe that it exists.”

Strange exhaled. He gazed at his son for a long moment. Then the tenderness of relief was overtaken by an odd glint in his eyes. 

“I suppose you have proven responsible in the past,” said Strange, thoughtfully, “and fairies are still less wicked than devils and less alien to us than Fingerkings.” [6]

The Contrarian rapped his fingers against one armrest. “Yes, that's what I realised - ”

“And you put much thought into this plan, including multiple contingency measures. You have memorised the spell to ward off enchantment. You may not have seen the moon, but in the Neath you are surrounded by a vaster quantity of salt than you would be on the Surface; you have steeled yourself for the invisible nail; you have picked a secure spot to place your heart; you keep a red object close at hand.”

Every word was true, but the Contrarian began to feel unsettled. “Yes.”

“You are not liable to repeat errors of the Revival, since you have spent much of your life learning of them. Thanks to your education and childhood in London, you were better versed in the supernatural at age fifteen than I had been at age thirty.”

“Yes?”

“I wish you luck,” said Strange calmly. The bottom of the Contrarian’s mouth, which had been tensed into a stubborn line in anticipation, suddenly dropped and hung as Strange continued, “Yes, the more I think on it with an open mind, the sounder your idea is. I am excited for you, even! Only, be careful.” Strange shook his head. “Though I doubt the reminder is necessary, based on the sheer level of preparation you have done.”

“Oh...I haven’t been _wholly_ careful,” said the Contrarian. “I cut corners here and there.”

“Nevertheless, you are better-equipped than either Norrell or I had been.”  

“You said that the salt in Ormskirk’s spell did nothing - the greater presence of salt may not compensate for the moon’s absence.”

“It may have had no effect because the fairy did not tempt me through my sense of taste. Or there may have been an unobserved effect. I was generally so preoccupied with my own genius that I neglected to examine the spell in-depth, foolish as I was.” Strange tilted his head, his smile as demure as it was ironic. “Unlike you. Anyway, even if that part was truly weak or useless, perhaps its ineffectiveness was _because_ I was in England instead of a nonhuman realm.” 

“The spell was written by a human who lived in the human world,” the Contrarian objected. “Why would it be least effective on the Surface?”

“Argentine magicians often recorded magic they did not understand,” said Strange. “Ormskirk likely had no idea what the spell meant. Perhaps it was originally intended for use in other realms. Similarly, perhaps one is automatically more susceptible to enchantment if one _has_ seen the real moon.” He shrugged. “Speculation is rather pointless since you will test it soon.”

“I’m not convinced that fairies are altogether removed from Fingerkings,” blurted the Contrarian, “given their similar naming patterns and fondness for tricky bargains and...roses.”

“Norrell and I are investigating the link, yes, but both beings have proven so fickle and aggressive, respectively, that I doubt they collude at present.”

“But they could.”

“I doubt it,” repeated Strange, with conviction.

The breeze reasserted itself through an icy gust that extinguished two candles. 

“So, unless I'm drastically misreading how our conversation has progressed - ” the Contrarian's face contorted, “- I've gained your approval?”

“You have my utmost blessing.”

“Ah.”

The Contrarian sagged into his chair, blinking rapidly. He straightened, clawed at the armrests and opened his mouth for several seconds but could force no sentence out. He slumped again. Their eyes met; his questioning, Strange's gleaming like polished moon pearls. 

“Someday I will return to you,” said Strange, pressing his palm flat against the mirror. “Count on it.”

The Jovial Contrarian didn’t bother saying that 'return' was an inaccurate word for their relationship. Instead he followed suit. Unlike their previous meetings, their hands were nearly the same size now, his fingertips almost exactly meeting his father’s. Familiarity shone from eyes that were not his own, from a smile that was not his own. For a moment it seemed that they were not separated by distance and time and a layer of glass. But Jonathan Strange did not specify when he would leave the Darkness, and the Contrarian did not ask.

“Goodbye, Father,” the Contrarian said serenely.

Strange gave him a final lingering affectionate glance, then turned on his heel and walked until his figure was indistinguishable from the deeper Darkness of Hurtfew Abbey. The glass frosted to reflective. Every candle in the room blew out.

In his own unnerving darkness the Contrarian considered having the mirror draped with cloth tomorrow, to work without risk of interruption.[7] He swiftly decided against it. _Be careful,_ Strange had said.  _Though I doubt the reminder is necessary,_ Strange had said. If his notoriously reckless father could be persuaded that his plan was a decent idea within less than an hour, it was likely anything but. There were better ways. Surely.

* * *

**Notes**

1 By the late 19th century, the majority of London’s denizens were known by sobriquets, to mimic the style of the Traitor Empress. Full names tended to be closely-guarded secrets. As a result, it had become trickier to remotely cast a spell on a specific person - yet another staggering blow against the city's magical culture, though excellent news for duelists. [return]

  
2 Actually, there had been an occasion that Strange failed to remember and the Contrarian didn't care to recollect. For a week in his adolescence, the Contrarian had experimented with magic. He began with a modest version of the spell Mr Norrell had used to waken the stones of York. As it was his first attempt, he could hardly expect immediate success.

The statue screamed for hours. It saw Clay Men and wept. It saw its own hands and babbled in an unidentifiable language. The ordeal only ended thanks to Flora Greysteel's application of Stokesey's Vitrification, permanently turning the statue into glass. From that moment the Contrarian decided that if such a reaction was an inevitability in his life, he would prefer to evoke it in a human, or at the very least, a pre-sentient humanoid. [return]

  
3 He wasn't entirely wrong. His salivary glands had been distressed by the change in routine. In the spirit of their owner, they had yet to decide whether to react by overproducing or drying up. [return]

  
4 Sunlight is the raw power of stars, the Judgements, who dictate laws of the universe such as time and mortality. As the Neath is around a mile underground, it's nowhere near as subject to their rule as the Surface is. The Contrarian was unaware of these facts, though he would probably appreciate the irony. [return]

  
5 The first line of 'The Raven King' (a well-known ballad about an abduction by the eponymous ruler), albeit with an emotionally fraught comma inserted. [return]

  
6 Strange and Norrell's adventures had yielded discoveries about fairies' relatives, most of which had never before been mentioned in the history of English magic. (Though they feature prominently in other magical histories.) Fingerkings are serpentine beings who dwell behind mirrors, in Parabola, dream-realm of Is-Not. They strike bargains with humans and can possess mortal bodies. However, they aren't tied to a specific human culture, for several reasons. One is that Fingerkings technically don't exist. If you try telling this to a Fingerking they may bite you - not because it's debatable or because they particularly disagree, but because Fingerkings like biting people and you shouldn't talk to them. 

Since the Judgements' light doesn't touch Parabola, it and its natives persist in a lawless state of non-existence. Parabola is only accessible in the Neath due to the Neath's lack of sunlight. Anyway, you don't need to understand yet. You may learn in time, as the Contrarian does. Unfortunately.[return]

  
7 The Venetian mirror’s vital role in Strange and the Contrarian's interactions coincidentally echoes a parable by Søren Kierkegaard, found in _Stages on Life's Way,_  published in 1845 under the pseudonym 'Hilarius Bookbinder':

_“There was once a father and a son. A son is like a mirror in which the father beholds himself, and for the son the father too is like a mirror in which he beholds himself in the time to come. However, they rarely regarded one another in this way, for their daily intercourse was characterised by the cheerfulness of gay and lively conversation._

_“It happened only a few times that the father came to a stop, stood before the son with a sorrowful countenance, [...] and said: ‘Poor child, you are going into a quiet despair.’ True as this saying was, nothing was ever said to indicate how it was to be understood. And the father believed that he was to blame for the son’s melancholy, and the son believed that he was the occasion of the father’s sorrow - but they never exchanged a word on the subject [...]”_

Prior to 1884, Strange and the Jovial Contrarian had had a different squabble about the Contrarian’s Bazaar-thwarting activities. Strange deliberately enacted this portion of the parable out of curiosity. 

“Poor child,” he said, soothingly smoothing a hand down the glass, “you are going into a quiet despair.”

“I’ve never been quiet,” protested the Contrarian, “nor have I despaired.”

“If _you_ have never been quiet, surely you have never heard your despair, quiet as it is.”

The Contrarian could offer no satisfactory rebuttal on the spot and laughed good-naturedly instead. They then proceeded to argue about how he’d been working with bats instead of cats. It was just as well; they’d both stopped reading at the part where the father died.[return]


End file.
